Agriculture Report: An Evolving Garden

What is an “Agriculture Report”? Well I was inspired by  @quiteayarnblog‘s ongoing series of posts titled “Agriculture Report” (and this title always cracks me up) that are actually updates of what is going on in her garden. I just had to adopt this same title for updates on what is going on in my garden/my “garden report”

In March John and I moved to a new home and since March we’ve been working on settling into to our new place. Part of our settling in involves setting up a new gardens.

The Old House

I loved my little garden(s) at my old home – it was spread among the front bed of the house, the upstairs deck; and in a raised bed that John built:

The New House

We’ve starting putting together a garden-ish experience at our new home. The front and backyards have very different layouts than my previous home. Also the front yard landscaping is controlled by the community association and I have to get special permission to make changes (which I will eventually do but not right now).

If you remember my June 2025 post Agriculture Report: “I Never Promised You a Rose Garden” in which I shared John’s love of roses that he inherited from his beloved grandfather, one of the first things we did this summer is try to put together a little “rose garden” but this time using pots as we are in a “water wise” community and they control what you can plant and where you plant at your house.

Above you can see our collection of shrub roses and a couple perennials in pots along our back fence.

I also snuck into the pots some basil, oregano, thyme, mint and rosemary because I can’t imagine summer without fresh herbs.

Recently new friends we met in the neighborhood and have over for dinner brought us a stained glass garden gnome made by one of them who is a stained glass artist.

I remind myself we are just getting started and figuring stuff out. It took years to get my previous yard/garden how I wanted it.

Patience, patience, patience is my mantra 🙂

We did have some concrete work done in our new backyard, extended the small concrete patio that came with the house.

We bought a new large patio umbrella and added some pull down shades; but all our old front porch, patio, or deck furniture fits in our new backyard.

Here is John enjoying a snooze in the backyard today.

It’s been weird having neighbors behind us – I’d gotten so used to having an open space behind my house. The neighbors aren’t bad, it’s just getting used to partially seeing/hearing people right behind you where they are in their backyard at the same time!